This year, I sampled 19 different collections published within the past few months. These eight made my cut for commending to you.

This approach has the same limitation that real-world speed-dating has: It yields quick first impressions based on a short amount of time together.

I've listed them in descending order of my preference.

'The Last Thing We Need'

by Mike McCormack

From 'Forensic Songs' (Soho)

The story: A sergeant nearing retirement and a young guard consider the mysterious and dangerous case of the only man in their Irish jurisdiction who has not written his memoirs.

The author: In 1996, novelist and short-story writer McCormack won the Rooney Prize, given to an Irish writer under 40 showing exceptional promise.

First impression: Its mocking litany of Irish writing clichés marks McCormack as a true son of Myles na gCopaleen and Flann O'Brien, but there's also an echo of Philip K. Dick in the sergeant's desire to root out possible future subversion.

Quote: "'No tender account of loving regard for his sainted mother?'

"'No.'

"'A disturbing account of clerical abuse?'

"The young guard shook his head, his misery now deepening as the note of incredulity thickened in the sergeant's voice."

'Collected Stories'

by Ryan O'Neill

From 'The Weight of a Human Heart' (St. Martin's Griffin)

The story: A woman recollects the difficulties of growing up with a self-absorbed writer-mother by connecting her memories to the mother's books.

The author: Born in Glasgow, O'Neill teaches at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

First impression: Vividly imagined story about a long-suffering daughter who serves as raw material; kudos for presenting the frequently hateful writer clinically, without apology.

Quote: "As a teenager I was sick of books, sick of writing. I didn't like to bring my friends home because of the way my mother looked at them. She unconsciously measured people for a story as an undertaker might measure them for a coffin. One time, at dinner, after she jotted down something I had just said onto the tablecloth, I shouted, 'Can't you stop writing for one minute? I'm talking, not dictating!'"

'Eye Socket Girls'

by Paula Bomer

From 'Inside Madeleine' (Soho)

The story: The narrator, hospitalized for anorexia, coolly eyes a new teen on the ward.

The author:Bomer is also the author of the novel "Nine Months" (2012).

Quote: "My neighbors don't eat either. Eye socket girls. Nurses drag them with their IVs to the scale. Some girls get weighed once a day, others, two or three times. Liquids pump into our bodies through plastic tubing, adding pounds to our emaciated frames. We don't like the pounds. We look voraciously at one another. We envy the protruding bones of someone who is that much closer to not being there at all."

'Dogs I Have Known'

by Andy Mozina

From 'Quality Snacks" (Wayne State University Press)

The story: An aggressive litigator who has trouble with human relationships remembers his encounters with dogs, some of them terrifying.

Quote: "It was a strange time for me. I had been experiencing a high level of conflict in the workplace. Even among other lawyers, my conversational style was deemed 'excessively argumentative.' The firm had been trying to promote collegiality among our attorneys, and it was felt that we needed to keep it down and respect each other and save our relentlessness for the courtroom and other venues where verbal sparring was the mode and expectation."

'Black Vodka'

by Deborah Levy

From 'Black Vodka' (Bloomsbury)

The story: A hunchbacked ad-writing wizard meets an alluring woman who wants to "see the bone that protrudes in your thoracic spine."

The author:Levy was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for her novel "Swimming Home" (2012).

First impression: Like the vodka noir the narrator is selling, this story can be sold as "an edgy choice for the cultured and discerning."

Quote: "From my position on the raised stage I could see quite clearly that she had drawn a sketch of me on the left-hand page. A picture of a naked, hunchbacked man, with every single organ of his body labeled."

'Going After Lovely'

by Sean Ennis

From "Chase Us" (Little A / New Harvest)

The story: A mother's intensifying agoraphobia destabilizes a family and leads a youth to run away from home.

The author: Ennis teaches at the University of Mississippi and through the Gotham Writers' Workshop.

First impression: As wild as a Nickelodeon cartoon, only sadder and with more consequences.

Quote: "Lovely opened her package from Dad; it was a telescope. She didn't hide her displeasure. Dad gave me an archery set. Since we lived in a row house in Northeast Philadelphia, there was no sensible place to shoot an arrow."

'The Favorite'

by John Brandon

From "Further Joy" (McSweeney's)

The story: Garner, who escaped the gravitational pull of a small Georgia town once, returns home broke, looking for a way out again.

The author:Brandon is an assistant professor of creative writing at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., and the author of three novels.

First impression: If "The Favorite" were a football offensive scheme, it would be some kind of power running attack.

Quote: "He'd had a way, on kick coverage, of getting lost in the scrum and then squirting out at the perfect moment and surprising the ball carrier. People loved it. They would compliment Garner's mother on his pluck at the grocery or the gas station. Still, Garner had felt relief when he'd stripped off his pads for the last time, when he'd done anything in this town for the last time, knowing that in a matter of months, weeks, days, he'd be in Atlanta using his brain to the utmost among total strangers."

'The Dog'

by Jack Livings

From "The Dog" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

The story: A young Chinese couple who invested in a racing dog suffer torments — and torment each other — when the dog's career ends.

The author:Livings is a New York writer. All of the stories in this collection are set in contemporary China.

First impression: Like the stories of Ha Jin and the essays of Yu Hua, "The Dog" makes it clear that navigating life in today's China is not for the fainthearted.

Quote: "Sometimes Li Yan found Chen Wei's flair for the dramatic endearing. He didn't have much else to recommend him — he wasn't rich and he smelled of greasy smoke and he looked as plain as a flap of burlap, but he had shown up at the gates of her high school every afternoon with a flower clutched in his chemical-stained hand."